People may think your take is snarky but it’s very good actually. Classics become classic because they are beloved, not because “literature majors” demand it to be so. No novel has a readership outside of its own century that is not exceptional in some way. They must reach across time and into the universal heart of humanity to communicate so far beyond their own times. That’s why they’re still read. That’s why they’re classic.

Although I totally agree with you, there's also the meaning that the Classics is just a collection of books people claim to have read but never did.

Strong cultural impact? Yes. Riveting novel? No.

You know how academics rack up citation circles to "boost the impact of their publications"?

Literature is a bit like that where you have a small group of people dictating the tastes of others, until it eventually collapses in on itself like a black hole and you're staring at an empty canvas, a banana peel, and an empty can of deodorant and calling it art.